Will ESF ever be noob friendly again?

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The more I compare 1.2.3 to 1.3 Open Beta... the more I miss the 1.0-1.1 days. When the were more than 20/40 player servers and they were in a constant flux of players. You can't blame this on the next-gen of PC and console games, because another HL1 mod (Counter-Strike) is still going strong. How can such a popular franchise, like DBZ, not keep this game popular? What I hope, is that the current dev team, is making that their number one priority.

It seemed as if the more you guys tried to make the game more challenging, you also made the stability more challenging as well. As someone who has been shown how current players go about enjoying the game. It's clear to me that it's gone from an open-ended experience... to an over-coordinated tap dance.

You can't tell me that making a game more complex isn't always the best idea. I realize that you guys dropped the 'advanced' melee mystem from the 1.2 era, and seem to hopefully be working on something else.

Who hopes that we never see an "engine-within-the-engine" again... and can say that ESF feels like straight-forward brawl-fest?

Will ESF ever be noob friendly again?
 
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The new version will be much more new player friendly imo, If you can swoop into somebody, thats 70% of the gameplay.
 
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The new version will be much more new player friendly imo, If you can swoop into somebody, thats 70% of the gameplay.
What's the other 30%?

15% beams and 15% advanced melee?
 
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If you want players you should advertise the game not as an "Earth's Special Forces: The Half-Life Mod", but as "Earth's Special Forces: The Dragon Ball Z Multiplayer Game for PC" after the 1.3 is out.
 
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10% beams, 10% bonus points use, 10% attack choice

Its really simple now, a lot more user friendly.
 
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ESF 1.3 will definitely be way more newbie friendly compared to 1.0, 1.1, and 1.2.
 
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I also realized that this is a very big problem with the 1.2.3. The learning curve is too steep and a lot of the players will not invest that much time to learn to start enjoying the game. Moreover playing with a very experienced player unfortunately does not improve ability very much since the noob will most likely be owned before he is able to touch a button(this is a death match and a noob can not hide or escape).

Afterall this mod should be here to give the DBz fans a way to experience the things in anime, have fun. So gameplay is important but it shouldn't be very hard or you won't have new palyers joining the game.
 
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the games not difficult to learn. the only reason we perceive it as hard is because your able to master the game to such a high degree.

kinda like those players in counter-strike are able to snap into a headshot, instantly, the ESF pro's can counter most attacks that you throw at them.

only the interface will ever be noob friendly. no matter what you do, the game will be difficult because of the players, not the gameplay. in any case, we shouldnt focus too much on noobs. "noob" is a short-term nickname, after all.
 
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yeah, we simplified a lot of the workings of ESF. There are A LOT of things you can do, but most of them are with a tap of a button. and like skiwan said, you basically just need to catch that player.. :D
 
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Let's forget about the noobs and look at mid level players(who know advanced moves, manage ki wisely).

I disagree the part where you compare this to counter strike.

First of all this game is more deathmatch based so it should be compared to the likes of HL2 Deathmatch, Quake DM etc. Although you can find servers need a high level of skill still there are lots of servers where mid level player can enjoy(and even in the servers of high skilled players a mid level player can have a lot of fun and frags :D).

Getting 4 hits back to back and be finished by a beam is NOT fun at all and most people will not bother to return to the game if they are exposed to such situation.

Unfortunately in ESF there is little disadvantage of fighting againist more then one players. In fact a high skilled player will own 2-3 mid level players easily. This is not the case in deathmatches. In the open if 2-3 midlevel players coordinate one of them will get the skilled player eventually.

And don't forget that CS has a huge fan base and you can find a lot of servers and can choose the one that suits you most. And the fan base recruits new members and the negative effect of steep learning curve is compansated by the popularity of the game.
If you looked at esf 1.2.3 lately you'll see that there are like a tolat of 10-15 servers and only 2-3 of them has players in them. When you have 1-2 high skilled players in those few active servers even a mid level player can get easily owned and eventually leave the game.
Those few "pro" players will claim that this is the way is should be but this is simply preventing the game to get to a larger audience.



the games not difficult trn. the only reason we perceive it as hard is because your able to master the game to such a high degree.

kinda like those players in counter-strike are able to snap into a headshot, instantly, the ESF pro's can counter most attacks that you throw at them.

only the interface will ever be noob friendly. no matter what you do, the game will be difficult because of the players, not the gameplay. in any case, we shouldnt focus too much on noobs. "noob" is a short-term nickname, after all.
 
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This problem goes back all the way to 1.0, a lot of people played back then though despite the incredibly hard skill curve. I think the game has changed so much that it isn't quite the same game anymore, health bars have been dramatically increased, and damage caps on generic beams and so-forth. The fundamental gameplay is still in place, its an aerial dog fight, where you chase after each other and hope to get hits, and try to link up combos, but its a lot less predictable the distances that provide you with combo opportunities, though you may now infinitely hit your opponent (no 2 hit cap), they can recover faster (with a stamina cost) and your hits do not always hit them the same distance. Ki attacks have gone through a major revamp, and are now much easier to use (through lockon and such) and some things such as ki blobs are completely gone, blast radii on all beams have been capped too.

Esf has gone through some radical changes for 1.3, I for one think this'll be the most player friendly yet deeply skilled version there is. I also think it'll lose that "frag based" feel, and become much more about a game of skill.
 
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Let's forget about the noobs and look at mid level players(who know advanced moves, manage ki wisely).

I disagree the part where you compare this to counter strike.

First of all this game is more deathmatch based so it should be compared to the likes of HL2 Deathmatch, Quake DM etc. Although you can find servers need a high level of skill still there are lots of servers where mid level player can enjoy(and even in the servers of high skilled players a mid level player can have a lot of fun and frags :D).

Getting 4 hits back to back and be finished by a beam is NOT fun at all and most people will not bother to return to the game if they are exposed to such situation.

Unfortunately in ESF there is little disadvantage of fighting againist more then one players. In fact a high skilled player will own 2-3 mid level players easily. This is not the case in deathmatches. In the open if 2-3 midlevel players coordinate one of them will get the skilled player eventually.

And don't forget that CS has a huge fan base and you can find a lot of servers and can choose the one that suits you most. And the fan base recruits new members and the negative effect of steep learning curve is compansated by the popularity of the game.
If you looked at esf 1.2.3 lately you'll see that there are like a tolat of 10-15 servers and only 2-3 of them has players in them. When you have 1-2 high skilled players in those few active servers even a mid level player can get easily owned and eventually leave the game.
Those few "pro" players will claim that this is the way is should be but this is simply preventing the game to get to a larger audience.
You base your statements off of 1.2.3

But the real picture is this. Compared to 1.0 and 1.1 you can get really good in 1.2 weeks faster than 1.1

The learning curve for 1.1 was higher than that for 1.2 allso because 1.1 was a lot faster than 1.2

Yet 1.1 was still a lot more popular than 1.2
 
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I stopped playing when the advance melee came out. I loved the basic melee because it wasn't complicated back then but sure enough, 1.3 looks awesome. D:
 
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It could be worse :).

It makes sense good players should win more but the learning curve could be a little less steep. That's right, I'm still thinking about my tournament match loss.
 
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i think it was cucumba that explained this before, but, the learning curve is so steep because its an entirely different game than any you have ever played. if you transition from UT to CS you pretty much know 75% of the controls and game mechanics.

ESF, however, gets rid of all except for 4 or 5 of the controls and the mechanics are completely different. no headshots for example.
 
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Off-topic: Meh... if you go from CS to UT you should expect getting owned.
On-topic: nothing rly...
 
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I also think it'll lose that "frag based" feel, and become much more about a game of skill.
That's what I'm worried about.

When you say "a game of skill" you remove the fun-factor.

CS does require skill, but it's not very complex as far as what people consider skill.

With ESF, skill became finding the best way to exploit the system.

1.0-1.1 was fraged based, because it was easy to get a kill... 1.2+ made it very hard to get a kill unless you ambushed or knew how to pattern your ever move. When someone came up with the best pattern, everyone latched on to that person, and begged to learn the pattern. Eventually, clans were based off the pattern the best player used. It wasn't long before all the casual players were booted out... because they were too impatient to learn the pattern.

I hope you guys are aware that whatever you have planned, you make it your goal in every test session, to figure out a way to create the best pattern of attack, then find a way to counter that pattern of attack, until all the possible patterns have another pattern that counters.

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The reason I said it was not so much frag based was because the increase in health, while we're not going to be having the 5 minute long matches that made the open beta a chaotic mess, there isn't the 4 hit string of death that was in 1.2, now you can be ambushed and live to retaliate.

The thing is development wise its very hard to estimate all the exploits of systems until it's tested on large groups, but we strive to take into consideration everything we can. I honestly think, our current inteam is really nice and very new-player friendly, I mean, even dam can do well ;P.
 
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By reading this whole thread over again, I can see that a lot of the arguements are based off of 1.0-1.2, and a lot of people think they know whats in 1.3. The problem is.. you dont.. Though we have released a lot of docs for you to read, not everyone reads them.

1.3 has honestly changed A LOT of mechanics that the only thing you can link from 1.0-1.2 to this version is the fact that you can still swoop, teleport, and basic melee. thats mostly just it.

1.0 and 1.2 only really had 1-3 different variances of attacking and some of which were rediculously slow. 1.3 has 4 generic melee attacks which in my honest opinion are DAMN AWESOME. To both, visual, speed, and combos. You are litereally able to build up and create some crazy combos depending on what melee attack you use. Not only that but the defender is able to retaliate. I still dont know how the retaliation works yet lol. But its very effective though.

none the less, comparing the old version to 1.3 isnot even possible. There are so many changes in so many ways. That you'll realize that 1.3 is easy as hell. Think Street Fighter, you have only so many attacks but how you use them can make you a great player.

get what Im sayin?...
 

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